An extension to the Ruby Process module for checking if a given process is running.

process.rb

# usage: Process.alive? 1
#        > true
module Process
  class << self
    def alive?(pid)
      return false if pid.nil?
      begin
        Process.kill(0, pid.to_i)
        status = true
      rescue Errno::ESRCH
        status = false
      end
      return status
    end
  end
end